Jackie Chan Death Hoax

Was actor Jackie Chan killed in an accident while filming a movie?

Claim: Actor Jackie Chan was killed in an accident while filming a movie.

FALSE

Examples:

[Collected via e-mail, June 2013]

Actor – Jackie Chan Falls To His Death In Austria

THIS STORY IS STILL DEVELOPING…

Actor Jackie Chan died while filming a movie in Kitzbühel, Austria early this morning – June 20, 2013.

Preliminary reports from Austrian Police officials indicate that the actor fell more than 50 feet to his death in a remote area of the Hahnenkamm mountains while on-set during the filming of a movie. Specific details are not yet available.

The accident occurred at approximately 4:30 a.m. (UTC/GMT +12).

Additional details and information will be forthcoming.

[Collected via Facebook, September 2013]

Hollywood Breaking News – Chinese Celebrity Superstar “Jackie Chan” died
after perfecting a deadly stunt. Jackie Chan has fallen 12 stories high
from a building. FBI are currently investigating to detect if any foul
play was involved. Watch the original video of the deadly stunt and their
effort to save Jackie Chan. (18 years and above) Watch the video footage
here:

Origins: The web site mediafetcher.com includes various templates that allow users to dynamically generate phony news stories about celebrities coming to harm in various forms of accident simply by plugging their names into the URLs used to access those templates. For example one mediafetcher template produces fake articles about actors dying in snowboarding accidents in Switzerland, and another

template generates phony articles about actors falling to their deaths from Austrian mountains.

The latter faux news template allows users to plug in the name of a celebrity and then displays a “Global Associated News” article claiming that died from a fall while filming a movie in Kitzbühel, Austria. For example, that same template can be used to produce a phony article about such a fate befalling anyone from Tom Hanks to Paris Hilton.

Every few months another one of these faux user-generated articles is circulated on the Internet to fool the unwary, generating a brief but intense hoax for the named celebrity. In June 2013 the latest victim of this jape was actor Jackie Chan, who, despite claims of his untimely death, remains healthy and whole.

Internet users who visit the mediafetcher site tend not to notice the disclaimer displayed at the bottom of the template page in tiny type:

about this web site: FAKE… THIS STORY IS 100% FAKE! this is an entertainment website, and this is a totally fake article based on zero truth and is a complete work of fiction for entertainment purposes! this story was dynamically generated using a generic ‘template’ and is not factual. Any reference to specific individuals has been 100% fabricated by web site visitors who have created fake stories by entering a name into a blank ‘non-specific’ template for the purpose of entertainment.

On 21 June 2013, Jackie took to Facebook to post a recent photograph of himself and a message reassuring fans he was still alive:

Hi everybody! Yesterday, I got on a 3am flight from India to Beijing. I didn’t get a chance to sleep and even had to clean my house when I got home. Today, everybody called to congratulate me on my rumored engagement. Afterward, everybody called me to see if I was alive.

If I died, I would probably tell the world! I took a photo with today’s date, just in case you don’t believe me! However, thank you all for your concern. Kiss kiss and love you all!

In September 2013, Jackie Chan’s name was used in the latest of a series of phony celebrity tragedy stories posted on Facebook by scammers trying to lure victims into following malicious links.